Freek Kuipéri, Marina van Geenhuizen and Jan Anne Annema

This chapter explores important uncertainties faced by cities in designing a charging infrastructure for electric vehicles (EVs), and it provides important ingredients for adaptive policy making. Uncertainty stems from future EV demand, new/improved technology concerning batteries, charging equipment and alternative fuel, and integration of EV batteries as a storage medium in smart energy systems. The chapter illustrates these uncertainties using scenario-analysis of demand for charging infrastructure, including the level of city quarters. Furthermore, large cities in the Netherlands tend to be slightly more ambitious with regard to EV policy than smaller cities, but there may be differences between large cities in different countries, for example Stockholm and Amsterdam. The chapter closes by presenting an adaptive policy making framework, given the uncertainty in national policies impacting on demand for EV cars, in integrating EVs in larger systems of renewable energy, and in arrangements concerning exploitation of charging stations.

Suvi Konsti-Laakso, Satu Pekkarinen and Helinä Melkas

In this chapter, living labs are perceived as open networks through which new innovations can be developed. The study deals with innovation in the public sector and examines renewal of well-being services for citizens in a regional context, such as establishment of a social enterprise for mental and addiction rehabilitees; use of a service robot in public elderly care; new ways for dentists to increase participation of teenagers in dental care. Using a multiple case study design, a cross-section of 14 living lab initiatives in Lahti (Finland) is analysed and the outcomes presented. Four different outcome categories are identified and analysed: access, windows, new solutions and new capabilities. Specific attention is given to outcomes for utilisers. Furthermore, the results contribute to an improved understanding of regional living lab activities and key conditions for their success, as well as the success of public sector health services, often as an institutional innovation.

Edited by
Urban Gråsjö, Charlie Karlsson and Iréne Bernhard

Developed countries must be incredibly innovative to secure incomes and welfare so that they may successfully compete against international rivals. This book focuses on two specific but interrelated aspects of innovation by incumbent firms and entrepreneurs, the role of geography and of open innovation.

Stephan Diek, Marina van Geenhuizen and Bart van Hulst

The chapter introduces a novel financial arrangement in healthcare services: Health Impact Bonds (HIBs). Transition aims at making healthcare services not only more affordable but also more efficient, the reason why HIBs focus on the performance (output) side of services (pay-for-success contract). The chapter describes the urgency and challenges in moving towards illness prevention, on the system (healthcare) and project levels. Next, it is explored how HIBs can improve situations of care investment that does not (fully) precipitate at the investor while preventing the rise of new problematic situations. Accordingly, a preliminary list of conditions is designed for the alignment of HIBs. Overall, it seems that HIBs provide substantial solutions by combining new contracts on paying-for-success in performance and a shared savings contract, although some questions remain regarding the involvement of investors. The concluding section includes a reflection on city involvement in HIBs.

Marina van Geenhuizen and Nick Guldemond

This chapter studies living labs as a methodology of user-centric innovation. The focus is on sustainability in healthcare and increasing efficiency, affordability and inclusiveness. The real-life environments are residential homes for elderly people, hospitals and a shopping mall, the latter as an example of increasing accessibility for wheelchairs. The chapter aims to identify critical factors in the performance of living labs, drawing on literature and in-depth case studies in Eindhoven and Maastricht (Netherlands), Copenhagen (Denmark) and Montreal (Canada). Important critical factors are: early involvement of users, including feedback from them, and sufficient involvement of a wider network of stakeholders with the required expertise/input. An appropriate selection of promising inventions is also important. A preliminary analysis of network building through living labs found a trend for both local and global networking, with an emphasis on the latter. These findings touch on a leadership challenge for local governments, namely as a ‘connector’ between different local/ regional organizations.

Mozhdeh Taheri and Marina van Geenhuizen

This chapter investigates the extent to which university spin-off firms in new medical technology reach the market and create job growth, for example, in support in care-providing, minimally invasive surgery, tissue engineering (organs), and information and communications technology (ICT)-supported diagnosis. The study draws on a small selective sample and employs rough-set analysis to identify preliminary causal patterns. One of the strongest influences seems the subsector indicating diversity in technical complexity (risk) and regulation (testing and approval), while management experience and access to venture capital also have a role. Furthermore, drawing on in-depth case study analysis, the preliminary conclusion is drawn that spin-offs in complex and risk-taking fields are able to survive in close research collaboration with the ‘mother’ university and/or academic hospital, and through this link, with universities and hospitals in global networks. Others that lack such relationship tend to be much more vulnerable, particularly due to healthcare budget constraints and firm-specific lack of management experience.

Marina van Geenhuizen and J. Adam Holbrook

This chapter summarizes the important findings of the previous chapters and identifies the different challenges in leadership roles of cities with regard to enhancing sustainability transitions. Accordingly, the discussion focuses on challenges in responding to favourable localized assets that are inherited, from nature or from past developments, and challenges in active city policies that connect and enhance seedbed functions, cluster formation/strengthening and bottom-up initiatives. Specific attention is given to the key condition of attracting and retaining talent, in other words a highly skilled and diverse workforce. The chapter closes with a discussion of factors that will enhance city leadership (in the future) and indicates a few important directions of future research.

Marina van Geenhuizen, Lili Song and Wim Ravesteijn

This chapter addresses the question regarding how seaports may move from a stepwise development to a leadership role in energy transition, as the Port Authority of Rotterdam (the Netherlands) wishes to do. A preliminary framework of conditions that enable a comprehensive shift, given involvement of a petro-chemical complex, is discussed. In Rotterdam’s vision, its new aim does not contradict economic development. Rather, growth is partially created through (niche) pilot projects and experimentation with new, low CO2, energy production and use, and spin-off effects. A crucial factor seems to be support by a national policy of rigorous reduction of CO2 production and emission. Next, the attention shifts to Shanghai (China) and how this port is performing with regard to sustainability changes. Radical shifts such as in Rotterdam seem impossible, however, stringent measures have been taken in Shanghai to increase sustainability in port activities. These measures are discussed and the dilemma of Shanghai is addressed.

Marina van Geenhuizen and Qing Ye

This chapter investigates the conditions for mass-manufacturing in the solar photovoltaic (PV) industry in China since the early 2000s, specifically the cities’ role of ‘institutional entrepreneur’. China’s PV industry has grown tremendously thanks to a match between policy incentivization of local industry and rising global demand for sustainable energy. Several cities gained leadership in mass-manufacturing and this is illustrated in the chapter through case studies of two companies, Suntech Power and Yingli Green, in Wuxi and Baoding, respectively. In particular, Wuxi can be seen as an institutional innovator, as evidenced by its recruitment policy of Chinese talent from overseas and refined interaction with provincial and national policy in financial incentivization of domestic companies. Today, China leads in acceleration of adoption of solar energy in Europe and US, as it hosts about 70 per cent of global production of solar cells/panels. However, since around 2012, the industry has also seen restructuring to increase product quality and improve efficiency.

Marina van Geenhuizen, J. Adam Holbrook and Mozhdeh Taheri

This chapter presents the theme, theoretical approaches and overview of the chapters in the book. The theme is the contribution of cities (their actors) to increased sustainability in social-technical systems, eventually by accelerating sustainability improvements. The selected systems are energy, transport and healthcare. Cities may act as the cradle of key inventions, as places of up-scaling and commercialization and as places of quick adoption, though few individual cities take up all these roles. Next, several urban innovation theories are introduced, including agglomeration and cluster theories, and the relational (collaboration) approach, with the aim to ‘position’ the chapters. Specific attention is given to the entrepreneurial ecosystem approach. Complementary approaches are institutional and governance perspectives, in particular with respect to cities acting as institutional innovators. A final approach is the evolutionary approach, as invention, up-scaling, commercialization and adoption of new technology are concerned with long time-lines and manifold uncertainties.